


We Ride

by PiratePlume



Category: All Elite Wrestling, Being The Elite (Web Series)
Genre: jericho and pac make an appearance! surprise! they're the outlaws!, uh so yea i continued my last story, wild west cowboy au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 17:13:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20531612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PiratePlume/pseuds/PiratePlume
Summary: wild west au that follows my last story "you may be down but you're not out"  the whole reason I started writing this was because adam posted those pictures of him wearing the bandanna and the rdr screencap about bandannas hiding your face when you commit crimes, and then the belt was stolen from jericho a few hours later.  I was pretty convinced that meant adam decided to go bad and take it, and then the thievery turned out to be real and NOT a work and the belt was returned to the police the next day... but I still had this story written so, the story is apparently continuing!





	We Ride

The early morning sunlight filtered through the thin cotton curtains and pried gently at your still-closed eyelids. You began to remember more memories from the night before the more you pulled from sleep and toward consciousness. A smile spread with languid, gratified ease.

The night prior you’d met the hangman, Adam Page, a sheriff’s deputy in a small town a day’s ride away. After talking through the metaphorical demons that’d plagued him since losing to an outlaw gang, the attraction between you two had become overwhelming. Adam had your back flat against the wood slats of the building’s side as you kissed in the shadows, pressing his thick, strong body into yours. The clothes you were both wearing became an annoyance. Greedy, you had tugged the buttons open on his black vest and skimmed down the material of his cotton shirt until you could pull it from where it’d been tucked into his trousers. Finally, you were able to slide your hands beneath the material and over his bare, warm torso.

After a sharp inhale of breath, Adam’s hands fell with even more need around your waist. He pulled you in even as he bullied closer, and his uninjured knee pressed the inside of your leg, encouraging you to spread them. He thrust upwards and somehow, despite the layers of clothing, you could feel him. His desire. Need. Something in him had come unleashed, as he scratched your skin with his golden stubble, moving his head to latch his lips down your jaw. His teeth drug over the skin on your neck and pinched before he kissed again. Your eyes rolled back into your head.

As he fell to his need, you did too.

“Come on,” you whispered in a tight, hot breath, pulling him from where he was kissing your skin by his gold-spun blond curls. Your chests both rose and fell in great, stuttering breaths, and the heat of his poured over you as close as you both were standing. “My place isn’t far.”

That’s how you’d wound up in your bed this morning, naked body aching pleasurably after a night of debauchery that made you grin and blush at the same time. Eyes still closed, your hand slid across the gap where you expected a handsome cowboy to be laying also in the nude. “Didn’t notice that injury too much,” you teased in your sleep groggy voice, wondering if you could convince him to go again before you showed up at the saloon to explain last night’s sudden disappearance. Food poisoning, maybe?

Your reaching hand found nothing but a cold, empty space. You blinked your eyes open and frowned, glancing around as if expecting to see him somewhere in your modest single-room place. But it was empty, and his spot in the bed had gone cold long ago, robbed of his body heat. Slowly, you sat up, and couldn’t help the way your heart sank. It’d felt like you two had shared something special, but he’d left without a goodbye.

It didn’t seem like him.

“What do you know?” You mocked your thoughts with irritation, trying to swallow back heartache. “You just barely met him last night. You don’t know him.”

Your heart rebelled, but you forced yourself to ignore its cries, and you tried to forget the passionate hangman with the green eyes and curly, long blond hair. It would have been easier if he hadn’t left a note. When you’d first noticed the scrap of paper, you’d been excited, thinking it would tell you when he planned to come back to you. Instead it only read: _Nothing’s going to change what I am, but I’m still trying to make a name for myself. Thank you… for everything._

Was that it? Was that the end of the night before? He hadn’t even given you a chance to argue. He must’ve known if he did, you would have found a way to talk him out of whatever idea had gotten into his head. Hadn’t you just told him the night prior that he was still the hangman? That he was still Adam Page? What did he mean about making a name for himself?

You found yourself worrying as an unsettling feeling fell heavy in your gut.

“What the hell happened to you last night?” Was the greeting the barkeep gave as you shuffled into the saloon. Even the guilt of sneaking out on your job the night before wasn’t enough to snap you out of your head, caught between worry over what dumb thing the hangman was going to do and angry that he’d left without a goodbye.

“Got real sick,” you lied, “didn’t think you’d appreciate me regurgitating supper on the customer’s laps.” You avoided his eyes and picked up a rag and set to getting the tables and chairs righted from the patron’s wild antics the night prior. The smell of breakfast cooking from the kitchen in the back tried to tempt your nose, but you weren’t hungry.

“Ah… alright then.” The anger was gone from the barkeep’s voice, and he was giving you a quizzical once-over. Your dejected heartache must’ve made it seem as if you had been sick the night before, because he bought it. “Let me know next time,” he said, adding, “if you can.” Before he returned to setting up, ready for the soiled doves and men that’d stumble down the stairs after waking. 

You swore to yourself that you’d stop thinking about the hangman, but you couldn’t help it. Every time those wooden half-doors swung, you found yourself looking over, heart lifting with hope. Each time it’d come crashing back down when it wasn’t him. Mid-afternoon it happened again, and when you looked up, you found yourself watching a group of men following one man, and all of them looked to be up to no good.

The man in lead had long, dirty-blond hair and a close-shaved stubble goatee. He wore all black, his jacket embezzled far too fancily for the likes of most of the men in the west. A long scarf was draped around his neck, hanging low over his front. His dark eyes swept the faces of the men who’d stopped to give him a quizzical eye.

“I’m looking for the hangman Adam Page, any of you idiots seen him?” 

Your heart was in your throat. You moved carefully back, behind the bar, and hoped he wouldn’t see you. He didn’t – he was too busy stalking around tables and asking after the man he sought – but the one that’d been on his left, with a curly dark beard and long black hair grown on top of his head with the sides shaved clean, had his eyes pinned directly on you. He made you nervous. He was average height, shorter than the hangman by a good three to four inches, but he was built strong and solid. The way he watched you reminded you of some kind of predatory beast, like a mountain lion with its eyes on the newly born calves, waiting for it to fall behind the herd so it could pounce and kill.

“Where are you hangman?” The head guy was two steps up the stairs and shouted up them, smile spread thin over his face.

“Gentlemen,” the barkeep had approached the head, palms up. “There’s no man called Adam Page here. If you’d like, I can serve you a drink or a meal. Otherwise, I’d ask you to get out of my saloon. We don’t want any trouble here.”

You noticed some of the men were lightly touching their pistols in their holsters. The mood in the saloon had dropped from happy, cheery sin to complete and utter seriousness. It felt as if the entire room was holding its breath, waiting to see what to do.

That man with the long, dark hair was still watching you. Your heart started beating a little faster in your chest.

“We don’t want any trouble either,” the head man said, smiling as he stepped back off the steps and opened his arms to the barkeep. There was something off about his smile… something almost slimy about it. You could tell it wasn’t true. “But I know your little friend the hangman was here last night. I was watching. Today, something very important to me went missing, and I know he’s responsible. So… are you going to tell me where he is, or am I going to have to resort to less kind tactics?”

“I already told you, there’s no one here by that name.” The barkeep said, voice firm.

Chaos broke out suddenly when the man lifted a fist and punched the barkeep hard and fast enough to drop him to the sticky, stained floor like a burlap sack of potatoes. People stood up, and the men who’d come with him descended on the crowd who rose up in arms. Guns were drawn, shots were fired, the unarmed women who’d been working screamed and fled, or tried to crouch and hide. Others, more fortified to the wild west way of living, were grabbing pistols off men who’d fallen and turning them on the outlaws.

But not you. The man who’d been watching you – the frightening one – he’d made a run toward you as soon as he had the chance. With a scream caught in your throat you’d turned, running out through the back kitchen and out the door that spilled into the long, narrow alleyway behind it. He was hot on your heels, and you ran as fast as you’d ever run, somehow knowing it was over if he caught you.

“Come on!” He shouted behind you, a laugh chasing his breaths, and sounded too close for comfort, “I only want to talk!” His voice was ladled with a heavy English accent.

He was gaining on you. You could hear his chesty laugh as it slithered toward your ears. You could hear his boots hitting the hard, packed dirt right behind you. He reached out and brushed the tips of his fingers over the back of your arm on the material of the clothes you wore. You pulled your arm away and tried to run faster, to push yourself further, but your chest was burning, and your legs were aching. You weren't sure how much longer you could run. The end of the alley was up ahead, and you could hear that the fighting had drawn the law, and it’d spilled out into the streets. You weren’t sure what scene you were going to run out into, but it sounded like an all-out gun fight.

“Gotcha!” He shouted, just as you burst into the open light and out of the alley. And he would have, if not for the sudden front-hooves of a rearing horse crashing down behind you. He yelled, letting your arm go and half-jumping, half-falling back onto the ground of the shadowed alleyway. You screamed, stopping and spinning around to stare with wide eyes, afraid you’d been about to get your head trampled on.

Adam Page, gun drawn, was seated on a gleaming chestnut with a thick white blaze and two white stockings on its back legs. His black bandanna was pulled up his face, over the bridge of his Grecian nose. He looked toward the outlaw in the alley and pointed his pistol, firing. The man fled back, finding himself some cover, and tried pulling his gun from its holster. During that time, Adam looked back at you, and you saw the concern in his eyes bleed through the adrenaline from the fight. He reached out with his free hand.

“Come on!” He shouted above the sounds of guns firing, men fighting, and people screaming. “Get up!”

“Did you do it?!” You asked, still angry at him for leaving, too panicked to realize this wasn’t the best time to stop and have a conversation. “Did you go do something as dumb as stealing from these outlaws before you’re even healed up?”

“God damnit! No!” A shot fired from the alley and he ducked, glancing back at the man who was crouched and had his pistol in hand. “Just grab my hand, now! We gotta get out of here!”

You did, and he hoisted you upward onto the saddle in front of him. Careful not to bury the saddle horn in your belly, you shifted your weight to sit proper while Adam gathered the reins around you and returned fire in the alley. With a kick of his heels and a sharp whistle, the chestnut gathered himself and burst forward into action, charging into the crowd. The wind disturbed past your ear – a bullet sung by – and when you glanced back you saw the figure of the man with long black hair glowering after you both, growing smaller and smaller in the distance.

The hangman urged the chestnut to gallop far from the town and didn’t pull back the reins until it was completely gone off the horizon. The horse pulled to a choppy trot, jostling you both in the saddle. Adam sucked an inward hiss of breath as his injured knee accidentally smacked down on the saddle leather and grunted, swallowing back the pain.

“You idiot,” you said.

“Hey! I just saved you,” he complained, pulling back on the reins again to stop the chestnut completely. He might’ve pushed at you gently to encourage you out of the saddle, but you didn’t need encouraging, you were already slipping out and stalking off, your mind a mess of emotions.

Adam’s boots hit the dirt, too, and he left the chestnut ground tied as he followed you. For a minute he just let you pace, standing with his hands on his hips, eyes trailing your every move. He’d tugged the bandanna down, and it was lying, tied around his thick neck when you finally stopped and looked back at him. 

“What did you take that pissed them off so badly?” Your heart was still beating heavy, hard and fast in your chest. You just kept thinking… what would’ve happened if Adam hadn’t gotten there when he did? What would’ve happened if he hadn’t broken that hold the outlaw had gotten on your clothes? Your skin crawled.

“I didn’t take a damn thing, I already told you that!” He spat, angry.

“Where did you go then?” You asked, equally upset, mind torn in too many directions to try and narrow down. You stalked closer to him. The pair of you stood just feet apart. His eyes jumped over your face, searching it. “Where did you need to go so fast this morning you couldn’t even wake me up to say goodbye?” It’d come out too fast to take it back, and you felt like a fool. The pair of you had just narrowly escaped death, and you were whining about him not saying goodbye? It was out, though. No going back.

At least Adam had the audacity to look a little bit ashamed. He glanced down between the pair of you and took a breath before looking back up. “Did you see my note?”

“Yeah,” you said, voice flat as your arms crossed over your chest. “That’s why I’m pretty certain you’re lying about not taking whatever it is those outlaws are so pissed was stolen. How else can you make a name but to go and risk your damn neck when you’re still injured to even the score? And look what it did!” You unfolded your arms just to wildly gesture back the way you both had ridden. “Look what it brought to my town! I could have died! People I know probably _did_ die!" Your throat closed up with emotion, and you tried not to wonder who was still alive back there.

“I know,” he stressed, and reached out between the pair of you to put his large, heavy palms on your arms. His eyes stared honest into yours. “You have to believe me; I didn’t go take anything from them. I just needed to get back to my town, check on the sheriff. I left early so I could make it there after a hard ride in a shorter time than it’d otherwise take, so I could make it back to see you again… I didn’t… I didn’t know they’d followed me there yesterday. I didn’t know they knew I was there.” His hands had moved up to your face, and the pad of his thumb gently, tenderly skimmed the skin of your cheek.

“You were coming back to see me?” Your voice was small, and all-too suddenly, you just wanted to collapse in his arms and forget the fighting.

“Of course I was,” he smiled a rueful, small, boyish smile. It was cute on him.

What else could he have meant about making a name for himself? Was he telling you the truth? Had someone else gone after the outlaw's that'd injured him and knocked him down from where he'd been riding high? Was he just a victim in this, and not actually the one driving the rivalry? 

You looked into his eyes and he watched you quietly. Hopeful.

“Alright Adam,” you took a breath and nodded, “I believe you.”

He looked relieved that you did, the tension dropping out of his shoulders, and you hoped your gut was right when it told you he wasn’t the culprit they suspected him to be.

“What next?” You asked, frowning.

“We ride.”


End file.
